Take a match to these two

I detest those two fuckwits. In fact I don't just detest them, I hate them. Whoever thought this would make a good idea for an advert has obviously never been inside a music shop. For the uninitiated, music shops are even more of an intimidating place than independent record shops. The minute you walk in the door the bloke behind the counter will say "Ay up, mate, can I help?" (cos he's your mate as he knows that you know how to play something. Or not, in my case). You never walk in and just start picking out a tune on an instrument, unless you're the kind of cretin who goes in just to show off his "chops" on an "axe" he could never afford in a month of Sundays by playing Van Halen's Eruption.
And what's all this "I like old movies" bullshit? He likes old movies like the Godfather Pt. 3. That's hardly an "old movie", is it? The first time I saw it I was expecting him to say "I like old movies, like The Battleship Potemkin". The Godfather Pt.3 was released in 1990, oh yeah, very old. Mind you, to these two pillocks 1990 probably was a long time ago considering she looks like she was born when the Poll Tax riots were going off. And isn't it funny how he's a little bit quirky-looking but not exactly ugly while she's got a face like a doll. How come he doesn't look as though he's the bastard love child of Olive off of On the Buses and Plug off of The Bash Street Kids?
Besides, who actually does that? You know just start picking out a tune like that in the hope that this lass might take a shine to him? I can just imagine my song:
"I like fairly new, ugh, 'movies' like Gregory's Girl and Reservoir Dogs...but that's just me. I listen to Radio Nottingham at the weekends but only for the football. I fart in my sleep. I also have an unhealthy interest in the Cold War and I don't like shaving very much as you can probably tell, but that's just me. Oh, and I don't moisturise but I have got a manbag just to prove I'm not a neanderthal, but that's just me"

And while we're on adverts, how come 'Toilet Duck' is now just called 'Duck'? What happened? Didn't Mr Duck and his germ-fighting, bog-cleanser-squirting aeroplane like being associated with human functions? Flaming spoilsport.
And there's two massive flaws in that new Yellow Pages/JR Hartley ad: there aren't that many record shops left any more. And as if his real name's Day V Lately, when he rang to reserve his copy surely he'd have given his real name like Clive Biscuits or Tom Gusset.

I hate ad men. Apart from those in Mad Men.

Charity begins in the street

I've been into town just now, and it's awash with, what I believe are called 'charity muggers'. Now, I'm a fairly generous person, I think. I donate to charity regularly (though like Smashie and Nicie, I don't like to talk about it), what I hate though is being bullied into it.

These charity muggers today were from the British Red Cross, a worthwhile organisation, I'm sure you'll agree. Today though I really didn't want to set up a standing order for £5 a month to go to them. I don't really like entering into contracts, apart from my employment contract, which is the reason why I refuse to have Sky telly, contract mobile phones etc. The thing is, they must have worked out that they could afford to blitz a town centre with these muggers today as the money they pay the muggers they must be able to recoup and then some. I mean, I take it they're getting paid for doing this as they all look like students. I think I must be an easy target - they see me approaching, floral print shirt, nice jeans, Converse All Stars. "Ah" they must think to themselves "This stocky, balding James Mayalike is just the sort of middle class bloke whose conscious will get the better of him - this is as good as in the bag." Think again, Student Grant, I encountered three, and these are the conversations I had:

Lady Charity Mugger: "Good morning, sir!

Me: "Morning!"

LCM: "Can you spare a couple of minutes for a chat?"

Me: "No"

She made a mistake, if she'd said "Morning, sexy!" then yeah, I may have stopped and indulged in some mild flirting before walking off without opening a standing order and she would have though to herself "Saddo thought he was in with a chance" well, that's her loss.

Next one looked like Hair Bear off of The Hair Bear Bunch:

Hair Bear Charity Mugger bellowing from a hundred yards away: "Morning sir!"

*I look over my shoulder in a mock 'are-you-talking-to-me-manner'*

HBCM: "Yes, you sir, the chap who looks very nice! Have you go time to chat, sir?! I'm not asking for money!"

Me: "No"

Next one approaches after I've stepped out of the music shop to drool over the drum kit I want and had a chat with the proprietor, with a copy of Kerrang!* and a practice pad under my arm.

Charity Mugger: "Morning, sir, have you got time for a chat?"

Me: "What, are you going to buy me a pint to go with it?"

CM: "Ho ho, no sir!"

Me: "Then I haven't got time 'for a chat.'"

Ha! That told him.

So what did I do then? I stepped into the Oxfam books and record shop where charity mugging of another kind was going on. What they hell are they doing with the prices? They had a vinyl copy of Dark Side of the Moon. "Oooh" I thought to myself "I wonder if that's still got the stickers and postcards which came with 1970s pressings?" I was disappointed, there was a card attached to the front which read "Late '70s pressing. No stickers or postcards. Plays okay, just slight jump during Brain Damage." Do you know how much they wanted for it? £9.99! That's nearly ten of your English pounds! What a rip off! Hardly a rare album is it, not when they've sold thirty million of them. If it had stickers and postcards? Yes, then they could have had my £9.99 and that would have made it four times that I'd bought the bloody record.

To compound this, in with the records was a Q magazine guitarists' photo supplement. I used to have that and binned it, now they want a tenner for something that was given away for free!

Compare that with the Oxfam in Nottingham a few months back which had every Q mag from issue 1-50 for sale for £90. I bloody wish I'd bought it now. No, scratch that, I wish I'd not thrown out my Qs which I collected religiously from 1988 to 1997.

I'm not being tight-fisted here, but Oxfam would get a lot more of my business if they looked into their pricing policy, so, in the long run, they've lost out. I mean, a vinyl copy of Blondie's Parallel Lines for £7.99 when you can buy it on CD from Sainsbury's for less than a fiver,? Do me a favour...*wonders off, muttering*...

Anyway, have a good weekend. If, like me you're going out for a picnic, with family, then note these wise words. Oh, and apologies for the 'screamers', went a bid mad with them, didn't I?:

*Yeah, I buy Kerrang every now and again. What are you going to do about it? Besides, this week's has got my four thrash metal heroes on the cover - together at last!

A load of rubbish to kill time

Let's get the football out the way: I'm not surprised, England will NEVER win the World Cup again in your lifetime. And as for people predicting the results, how can you? As Danny Baker says "Football is chaos and you can't predict the outcome of chaos." I saw one bloke give his prediction that England would win 2-1 yesterday after extra time. How can you be that certain of a scoreline? Tosser. I predicted England would bottle it, Germany ain't that good.
Anyway, I was in Nottingham on Saturday night, walked passed a Nando's with a sign outside that said "Piri piri - so good they named it twice." I know Nando's is now seen a s a bit of a joke but I've never been in one. Until Saturday night I thought it was a Mexican restaurant until it occurred to me that chicken piri piri is a Portuguese dish. I didn't go to Nando's, my pre-theatre restaurant of choice is Pizza Express. You can have junk food like pizza but because it's at cosy middle class haven that is Pizza Express, it's okay. And why do those sort of upmarket chain restaurants insist on playing jazz? It has to be the most un-relaxing music to listen to, after industrial metal and grindcore, I suppose. I once remember Talk Talk's Mark Hollis saying that music should never be used as background. In Pizza Express's case it's not background music because you've got Charlie Parker parping away in your earhole.
I fully intend to be the last person in the UK never to have eaten at a Nando's. Or Aberdeen Steakhouse. Or Spaghetti House. Or Garfunkel's. Or Bella Pasta. Am I missing out?
I saw about twenty minutes of Glastonbury on Friday night. That really is turning into some corporate rock cash cow now, isn't it? Take that John Peel Stage; it featured bands who I don't think Peel would have liked very much. From what I saw it put on bands who record labels pushed on there to up their profile. I came to Peel only when I started working shifts, his shows mainly consisted of unlistenable garbage but every twenty minutes or so a diamond would get pulled out. I recall one night we were given death metal followed by Sandy Denny followed by George Formby. What I don't recall is the singer off of Bloc Party showcasing tracks from his new solo album.
The drums then. I think I'm getting to the stage where I need to play with other people. So if anyone knows a guitarist and bass player in the Newark area who are looking for a distinctly average-to-poor-but-will-get-better drummer, then drop me a line. No timewasters or raggae musicians please.
Here's my drum tutor showing off. He's the one on the drums, by the way:

Metal on metal

I watched that Anvil: The Story of Anvil the other night. It's not very good despite all the plaudits it received. What I was expecting was a warm-hearted look back at a band who could have been contenders but never quite made. A film that investigated why they never made it, and their peers like Metallica, Motley Crue and Guns 'n' Roses did.

According to the blurb "Anvil were a major influence on the burgeoning thrash metal scene at the time. Members of Metallica, Anthrax and Slayer pay tribute." No they don't, they just come on at the start of the film and say "Anvil? Oh yeah, I remember them." That's it, not "Anvil? Well without Anvil we wouldn't be where we are today." And do you know why they don't say that? It's because Anvil aren't very good. Their so-called anthem, Metal on Metal, is just pretty average. The rest of the stuff I heard is third rate metal using adolescent sex (or the lack of it) as its subject matter. Look over any rock festival posters from the 1980s and there's Anvil at the bottom of the bill.

We're also told, according to the DVD box, to expect a "warm-hearted film about friendship." That's not really possible when Anvil's main man, Lips, is such an annoying prick given to moments of violence towards tight-fisted club promoters and even his own drummer, the man he was supposed to have made this pact with when he was fourteen that they'd "carry on rocking together forever." The drummer's name, by the way, is Robb Reiner, just one consonant too many away from sharing the same name as the director of This is Spinal Tap. Which is quite apt as Anvil's career trajectory mirrors that of Spinal Tap, especially the closing scenes of a rapturous return to Japan. The Japanese have a thing for a sub genre of heavy metal that I like to call 'Shit Metal.'

So the blurb's all wrong and what you get is a slightly depressing film about Lips cajoling Robb to go out on tour/make demos/try and get funding to make a new album in the UK. Fortunately for Lips - if not for the listening public - his older, and much more successful sister, stumps up the $12,000 to enable the band to record their new record in the Kent countryside. What follows are scenes of Lips chucking his toys out of his pram while sacking Robb. Robb returns to the fold about half an hour later when Lips has calmed down a bit. We then have to endure Lips hawking his record around major record labels without success. Lips gets upset.

Fortunately for Lips some bright spark invented the internet and you can buy it off him direct. Result! Not.

The saddest scenes though are near the beginning when a dodgy East European promoter books them on a European tour. It's very nearly heartbreaking to watch Lips approach metal luminaries like Michael Schenker, Carmine Appice and Tommy Aldridge at a Swedish metal festival to be met with blank 'who is this guy?' looks.

Robb emerges as kind of likable. You can tell he thinks they're flogging a dead horse but doesn't want to let his mate down. Surely there must have come a point in the past twenty years where he thought to himself 'enough is enough.' They both have day jobs, by the way - Lips delivers school dinners in a van.

No doubt Anvil will find short term gain from making the film, but they're still only making bottom of the bill at this summer's heavy rock festivals. More for curiosity value at a man who plays a guitar solo with a vibrator. Yes, really.

Anyroad, I went to see one of my favourite metal bands of the moment last night. The Amazon review for their new album contains this: "Fourth album from the successful American progressive metallers and follow up to their 2006 major label debut 'Blood Mountain'. That album, while their most successful, drew criticism from some fans for its seeming lack of focus. This album seeks to remedy that issue by having a unified concept in which an astral traveller wanders the spirit realm, exploring themes from quantum physics to Czarist Russia, and musically is as complex, brutal and enthralling as their earlier work." Which is pretty much what I want from heavy metal, not a turd with a Flying V and a dildo.

Rushian roulette

I've spent a lot of time on You Tube recently looking at old videos of Rush. I've never seen most of them before as when Rush were troubling the lower reaches of the pop charts in the late 70s and early 80s, they never got shown, and I didn't know who Rush were then anyway. What irks me though is these amateur musicians who like to play along with their favourite tracks. What with Rush being a bit of a musos band you get quite a lot playing a long to everyone's favourite Canuck prog-metal power trio.
Take this fellow:

He's paying along to Rush's Neil Peart. A man who is often hailed as one of the best drummers still living. Why does he think he can play any better? Nobody's interested in it. Are they? Well 192,000+ were interested enough to watch it. Mind you, they were probably thinking "Why doesn't he go out, get some exercise and get some of that lard off instead of sitting at home behind his expensive drum set up playing along to someone else? Or even better form a band and make some music of his own? And he should stop wanking too, it'll send him blind." I mean, how much would you love yourself to actually film yourself and then put it on the internet? Does he think he can do any better? Clearly not as he just drums along parrot fashion, like an unoriginal turd. Then you get all the other musos chiming in with comments like "Mmm, really tight man, I'd love to see you and Neil in a drum war!" Well the amateur would clearly lose, wouldn't he? Considering he has to drum along to someone else to perfect his 'chops' and can't come up with his own stuff.
Anyway, this girl pisses all over our friend above. And she's THIRTEEN. And she can do all that fancy stick twirling stuff.


I get inundated with literally no letters asking me why I like Rush. Try these three originals for size, they tell you everything you need to know about the mighty Canadians. Ladies: try asking yourself, could you ever love Geddy Lee (the singer)? Plenty of Rush's female fans do. I'll leave that thought with you.





This one's a belter with Aimee Mann playing a camerawoman. The director was obviously going mad with new technology: